


Restitution

by astronavigatrix



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-07 15:46:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1904676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astronavigatrix/pseuds/astronavigatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skin Game and onward AU ficlets, featuring everyone’s favorite braincrashing fallen shade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

”I’d actually forgotten he was this dense.”   
  
"What, did you get amnesia on top of your brain-parasite coma?" 

  
"A bit actuallly- it’s all quite melodramatic… In fact, we should send in a script to a soap opera, honestly."

  
"Maybe if we— oh, there we go, he’s coming around."   
  
The second voice is, of course, familiar- it’s his own, after all, if not quite as hoarse from a long week of screaming for his life and yelling out spells. The other is familiar as well, and for the longest moment, Harry can’t quite place it.

  
When he opens his eyes, he’s almost ashamed of himself for it, and Lash- clever, observant Lash- catches on immediately and her bright blue eyes shine all the brighter as she looks down at him, hair slipping over her shoulder as she bends down closer.   
  
"Hello my Host. Have you missed me?"   
  
"Like a hole in the head," is the immediate response as he sits up, feeling his head throb in the process and glaring (to great effect, what with the wincing and all, he’s sure) at first her, then the other version of him in turn. He regrets it immediately as something in Lash’s expression goes briefly, startlingly brittle, but then it’s gone and she’s all smiles and sacrilege once again, taking a step back as he climbs to his feet in the darkness of his mind. Lash is a bright, incandescent point and only seems to be getting brighter, and it takes all his focus to keep her from overwhelming his sight with her presence.   
  
"I thought you were dead."   
  
"To be fair, so did everyone. Well, except  _him_  of course.”    
  
His id-self gives a jaunty little wave, his smile sly and smug, and Harry smiles back (actually he just bares his teeth, but he likes to pretend it’s a smile) before Lash retakes his attention, hand on his arm.   
  
"There isn’t much time, you  _must_  listen.”  
  
"Oh sure, let’s just hope the other you- who, by the way, is kind of trying to  _murder me_  at the moment- will be nice and give us a quick time out.”  
  
The look he receives in return is so withering it could dehydrate a produce aisle, and he wisely snaps his jaw shut, making a ‘go on’ motion with one hand. Lash rolls her eyes, but continues, squeezing his arm.   
  
"If you want to survive this fight, you have to take off the earring."   
  
He doesn’t even get to speak the incredulous ‘ _what_ ' that would have come with the rise of his eyebrows. Lash steps closer, and he sees that the reason she's so bright is because she's fighting off the frost creeping up her limbs, the edges of her very being, threatening to overtake her entirely if she lets up. He understands, with sudden, violent clarity, the extent of Mab's trickery, and looks into Lash's eyes.   
  
"And if I do?"   
  
The obvious ‘what are you after’ is there, and she scoffs and pulls her hand away from him to cross her arms, looking somewhere between amused and disbelieving. She opens her mouth to reply, but doesn’t get the chance— his id speaks for her, sounding as insulted as she looks.  
  
"In case you don’t remember, she nearly died for us, genius. I think it’s safe to say that whatever she wants,  _we owe her_.”   
  
He wants to argue on principle- because Lash is the shadow of a fallen. She isn’t  _good_ , she doesn’t  _deserve_ …  
  
But she does, and he knows it. She stopped just being Lasciel’s shadow the moment she took that hit for him, and no matter what he says, he knows that without her, he wouldn’t even be standing there to have this conversation.   
  
"Fine."   
  
He grits the word out slowly, giving Lash a warning look. She only arches a brow, cheeky.   
  
"But no funny business."   
  
She loosens her arms, bringing two fingers to the side of her chest.  
  
"Cross my heart."   
  
He wants to groan at her for it, but his eyes snap open before he can, hand already at his ear. Ascher is closing the distance between them, and without a second thought, he yanks the earring out, pain lancing at his temples as if he’s set off concussion grenades between his ears. But for all that the pain is near-blinding, it’s ebbing for the most part, concentrating itself on the center of his forehead, and he sees Ascher’s eyes widen and hears Lasciel’s voice and both of them mean the same thing-  
  
” _Impossible!_ ”  
  
He manages to give them a crooked grin, and he knows, without needing to see, that Lasciel’s own sigil blazes back at her. It isn’t until later that he’ll learn the hourglass has been turned on its side, like an infinity sign, and he’ll sigh at Lash for how cliché it seems and she’ll laugh and tell him to get over it. But for now, Ascher is afraid, and Lasciel is in a rage, and for the myriad ways this could still go horribly, horribly wrong, Harry feels himself grin, sharp and dangerous, and can all but see the vicious sliver of Lash’s own smile in his mind, her power pressing against and then  _into_  his and holy  _shit_  that is a lot of horsepower.   
  
Ascher takes a step back, but Lasciel makes her stand her ground.   
  
"What happened to fighting fire with fire?"   
  
Lash groans in distaste, but it seems to spur Ascher’s anger once again, and she snarls out an insult and attacks. It’s definitely the wrong move to make.   
  
  
___________________________________________  
  


  
Michael only gives him a warning look as he turns to leave his home when all is said and done, but Uriel claps Harry’s shoulder and smiles and the former knight is so taken aback that he can’t come up with anything to say until Harry’s long gone. He doesn’t bother asking Uriel, but the angel looks pleased and that’s more than enough for him. Molly, on the other hand, whispers a warning into his ear- a threat really- that’s meant more for Her than for him.   
  
Harry doesn’t tell Murphy about Lash- he doesn’t know how to bring it up, and he doubts it’s what she wants to hear considering what’s happened to her.   
  
What surprises him most is that when he finally makes it home, Demonreach rumbles a greeting to him and then to his Guest, and his bewilderment sends Lash into a fit of amused laughter. At least, he thinks as he collapses into bed, he’ll finally be able to get some answers when he falls asleep.   
  
Of course, Lash being who she is, he really should have known better.


	2. Chapter 2

There is a shimmer of the air on Maggie’s other side, and both of Harry’s eyebrows rise so high he’s surprised they don’t detach from his face entirely. Lash- her hair short, wavy and as red as her lips- appears, bending over to inspect his daughter with an eye that is far too critical for his liking. Keyed in to his emotions as he is, she only smiles, mouth curving in a way that he still finds far too attractive for who and what she is, her attention never wavering from the small body tucked against Harry’s side.   
  
"Barely been in her life again for two weeks and already  _so_  overprotective?”   
  
Bright, sharp eyes slide up to him, violet as the power her coin had preferred, and she cants her head in a curious motion, hand ghosting over a stray curl at Maggie’s cheek. Harry would swear she actually brushed it back, but knows better. An illusion is all it is, another of Lash’s too-real tricks, although one she manages to make look surprisingly tender. He’s almost convinced, honestly. A blink, hard and sudden, and the strands are right back in place over a small, chubby cheek.   
  
He reaches out and tucks them back himself, and doesn’t respond.   
  
"Ah yes, the Knight. I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. He’ll know why I’m still around, you know. He, better than anyone, will understand."   
  
Harry slants her a look that he disguises as a fussy glance down at his daughter, and finds her eyes not on him, but on Michael, her expression surprisingly serious.   
  
He wonders if she had set that look on her face, speaking to him in his mind, before she died.   
  
Eyes meet his and he reaches for his beer slowly, taking a long swig and leaning back, eyes closing as Lash continues, undeterred by his silence.  
  
"Few things can redeem us. Fewer still can Save us. It isn’t like you couldn’t tell him why- you already explained it to yourself."   
  
He pretends- though he doesn’t know why, since she probably knows and Michael couldn’t possibly- that the word ‘love’ doesn’t immediately ring through his mind as she makes that point. He also pretends not to feel her radiating smugness as she seems to coil around the thought, keeping hold, letting it linger in the back of his mind until he heaves a sigh that gets Michael’s attention.  
  
"Ready to talk then, Harry?"   
  
The question is a low, pleased rumble from Michael and Harry honestly wonders why he even bothers trying to hide anything emotionally important from his friends anymore. 


	3. Chapter 3

Out of everyone he’s had to explain the situation to, Murphy is the one he’s dreading telling the most. It isn’t like Michael, who’s so good at forgiveness, at seeing the good in people and things alike that it makes him wonder why he was ever nervous. It’s not like telling Butters and Bob, the former of whom gives the skull a glance and sighs heavily, muttering something about ‘new books’, but congratulates him on saving one more person in all this. He’s never thought to consider Lash a person before, but he does his best not to dwell on that thought,not with her in there, capable of picking it apart and studying it like a child dissecting a frog.  
  
Instead he focuses on Karrin, and how she’ll be getting out of the hospital soon, and how he should probably figure out what he’s going to say before he goes to see her so he doesn’t wind up tasting the soles of his shoes.   
  
But no amount of thinking gives him the right words, and he loses sleep over it for nights, taking to running through Demonreach until he finally drops into his bed, too exhausted to keep himself upright any more.   
  
  
______________________________________  
  


  
Lash’s first order of business, the instant he’s asleep enough that she can dig her proverbial claws into his mind and keep him from waking, is to make him sit down in front of her while she stands, arms and legs akimbo, and stares down at him.   
  
"You’re an idiot."   
  
"Oh, are we stating the obvious? Because I think I should let you know, you’re still a freeloader in my brain."   
  
He snaps the words out defensively, and though her mouth twitches downward in the briefest of frowns, Lash doesn’t snap back. Instead she just gives him the flat, unimpressed look he knows he’s given Molly on more than one occasion, arms moving from her hips to cross over her chest. Everything about her- from her stance to the tilt of her head to the faint narrowing of her eyes- demands an apology, and when he doesn’t give it,  _that_  is when she snaps.   
  
"Ah yes, such an inconvenience I am, fixing up your memory, handling the clutter, making it easier for you to learn and keep important knowledge at the fore of your mind so you needn’t go digging like some senile  _mortal._ Goodness but your suffering is surely the stuff of legends, my dear Host. One would never think that you were anything like a selfish, self-preserving, emotionally stunted, prideful, ridiculous man whose decisions are based entirely on what will cause him the least pain rather than what might inconvenience those around him a  _mite_  less.”  
  
She  _struts_  to one side of him, bending slightly to speak into his ear, hand settling on his shoulder and squeezing in feigned sympathy, voice low and conciliatory as she continues.   
  
"No, my host, you are nothing short of a saint who would never make himself the hero at the cost of others being able to take care of themselves—"  
  
” _Enough._ "   
  
She stops, not because she is afraid of the anger in his voice, the way the constructed reality within his mind shakes under the command. No, she stops because she’s made her point- he can’t take another word of her truth, and she won’t say another word of it unless he keeps pushing her.   
  
Lash may care for him, but that does not mean she will not break him down if she needs to in order to lay bare the failings he needs to fix.   
  
And as much as he wants to deny her, he knows that she’s too deep in his mind- he’d be lying and she’d know it and that would only make it all the worse.   
  
"Nothing she says can be any worse than that now, can it?"   
  
Her voice is surprisingly cool as she says it, and while he can detect the edge of distaste to it- for all that she’s a master manipulator, something about Murphy makes Lash bare her proverbial teeth- it’s dismissive. Sincere. Even if Murphy might think the same things Lash does, she’d never say them, because she’d be too busy blaming herself for not being strong enough.   
  
That’s something else he’ll have to work on, and soon.   
  
"So what should I tell her then?"   
  
Lash’s stride brings him back around on his other side, her fingers trailing over the backs of his shoulders and up the side of his neck, along the scruffy edge of his jaw.   
  
"The truth should be more than enough." A moment of consideration, and she turns on her heel, hands clasped behind her back, facing away from him. "Don’t try and spare her any details, either."   
  
He doesn’t get a chance to ask what he means. Lash dismisses the construct and he wakes- rested if a bit aching- and watches the light of the rising sun begin to blaze in through the window.   
  
  
____________________________________  
  
  
Murphy’s reaction, when he tells her, is nothing like what he was expecting.   
  


Anger, wariness, a long and winding speech about how he’s only going to get played again- all things he’d been expecting. Perhaps even hoping for. He doesn’t expect the way Murphy looks at him, long and hard as if trying to stare Lash down through his eyes. Her smug challenge rings in his head and he has to fight the urge to roll his eyes and instead breaks his gaze away from Murphy’s, hands shoved deep in his pockets.   
  
"So where does that leave us?"  
  
He gives her the most puzzled look he can manage, hoping he can somehow convey the several levels of ‘wait, what?’ running through his mind. The question, simple though it may seem, can be taken more than one way, and he doesn’t answer because no matter which way he looks at it, he can’t think of a response she’d want to hear. The lack of reply seems to be good enough in and of itself, and she exhales, slow and deep, and shakes her head at him, leaning against the doorway of her house and staring at him once again.   
  
"Right. Guess that’s that."   
  
"Wait, Karrin, I don’t understand, what-?"   
  
"Don’t worry about it Harry. It’s… complicated."   
  
He makes a face, and she laughs and shakes her head, and promptly shuts the door in his face. Harry stands there for a full ten minutes, still staring at it as if the wood will fold under his gaze and give him the answers he seeks. Meanwhile, Lash radiates smug satisfaction in the back of his mind.   
  
Maybe, just maybe, when he’s feeling a little less like his brain’s about to explode, he’ll ask her what the hell  _that_  was all about. 


End file.
